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APRIL 14, 2017
FIRST REAL DEADLINE COMING
Tuesday the
18th is the deadline for bills to pass out of their original
committees, so the next few days should be interesting. For example, the
House Health Care Committee has 30 bills on their schedule today. I am
not sure what their fate will be because I am not part of the inner circle in
the House, but that does seem to be somewhat aggressive. The one thing we
do know is we will know most of the agenda for the rest of Session based on the
bills that come out of committee or that are sent to another committee to be
kept alive.
I thought
this might be a good time to talk about some of the bills I have sponsored that
at this point will not even get a hearing. First is Senate Bill
648. Very simply this would have required salary negotiations between the
executive branch and the public employee unions to be subject to the public
meeting rules. The way it happens now is the negotiations happen behind
closed doors and the Legislature is just stuck paying the bill for whatever
comes out. Due to the fact salaries and benefits are the biggest item in
the budget it would only make sense for this to be an open and transparent
process. I think it would be beneficial for the Legislature and the
public to know what is going on and have the ability to weigh in during the
process. In all other areas of expending tax dollars there is such an
opportunity for involvement. We keep hearing words like “open” and
“transparent” but at this point it is all talk, no action.
The second
bill is Senate Bill 864 which deals with putting a time limit on administrative
rules. When legislation is passed, the agencies impacted will write
administrative rules for the implementation of the law. Beyond that, they
will continue to modify their rules over time. There have been many times
when the rule end up looking nothing like the legislation they are supposed to
be implementing. This can be a problem because rules do have the same
authority as law. With Separation of Powers it is the Legislative branch
that creates the laws and the Executive branch that implements them. If
the rules have gone a different direction than what was intended, the only
recourse the Legislature has is to pass another law and hope for the
best. This bill would have required a mandatory review of rules every six
years to require the agencies to justify their actions. The volumes of
administrative rules are twice as large as the actual laws and it is time we
have some oversight of that process.
Finally, we
have Senate Joint Resolution 38, dealing with emergency clauses. In the
normal course of events a bill passed this Session would not take effect until
next January. There is a great deal of logic behind this process, as it
gives agencies time to prepare and gives the public a chance to express
opinions. If there is an emergency clause on the bill it takes effect
upon passage. There are some very good reasons for an emergency clause to
be used, but they should only be used when the needed time for action makes it
a requirement. Putting an emergency clause on other bills, and it happens
a lot, denies on the front-end the ability of the public to comment before the
bill becomes law. Our suggestion in SJR 38 would simply require a two
thirds majority vote on any bill with an emergency clause. The thought
was this might discourage using this tool simply to avoid the publics ability
to get involved in the issue.
These three
bills are about openness and accountability, something the Governor said she too
wants. However, the majority party does not seem to be interested in
taking any of these actions. We currently are seeing a continuation of
things happening behind closed doors and, quite honestly it is starting to get
very frustrating. My hope is the process will be open soon, but I am not
holding my breath.
Sincerely,
Senator Jeff
Kruse
email: Sen.JeffKruse@oregonlegislature.gov I phone: 503-986-1701
address: 900 Court St NE, S-205, Salem, OR, 97301
website: http://www.oregonlegislature.gov/kruse
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